Black Panther: Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler on why the sequel focuses on female characters after Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa’s death: ‘Their identities were kind of wrapped up in this man’

The film opens in theatres on November 11, 2022, in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu in India.

By Monica Yadav -

October 31, 2022 - 11:28 AM IST

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is all set to take the story of Wakanda forward after the passing of Chadwick Boseman. The actor passed away in 2020 following a prolonged cancer battle. The mantle now shifts to the female Black Panther in the movie, which is reportedly being taken over by Letitia Wright who plays T’Challa’s sister Shuri. The film now will focus on the female characters and it was an important decision for the makers.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler on why the sequel focuses on female characters after Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa’s death: ‘Their identities were kind of wrapped up in this man’

Speaking to the media at the press conference, producer Nate Moore explained the decision saying, “It was just the right story to tell. These were the characters who were most affected by T'Challa's passing and so we focused on the people who were appropriate. I think it's not about pushing women forward or holding men back, it's about telling the story that is organic.”

Nate added, “I think sometimes, maybe from the outside, there's a thought that there are agendas at play – it's just telling good stories. We are blessed with an amazing cast, who breathe life into these characters [and] to not highlight them would have been a disservice to the story. The movie's better for it because if we would have had to wedge in some new male characters just to have that voice that would have seemed more performative than just telling the story we told.”

Director and co-writer Ryan Coogler added, “Nate is absolutely right. What we wanted to look at was when you lose somebody, there's like a blast radius. It's like when a bomb goes off and who was the closest to it?”

He further explained, “The main characters, their identities were kind of wrapped up in this man. Shuri, every day she was alive, she had her brother. What we discovered while we were working on the script and then eventually bringing it to life with the actors, was that she really lost her sense of self. She identified herself as this guy's little sister and as his protector and as the person who looks out for him. When she loses that, it makes her very unmoored.”

“The tricky thing about that is that death comes for everyone and the worst nightmare that you can have is if something were to happen to you, the people you love and leave behind would be unmoored, would be lost after you were gone. So we were exploring all of those things, and it wasn't really about gender. It was about who was the most affected,” he added.

In the film, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), Shuri (Letitia Wright), M’Baku (Winston Duke), Okoye (Danai Gurira) and the Dora Milaje (including Florence Kasumba) fight to protect their nation from intervening world powers in the wake of King T’Challa’s death. As the Wakandans strive to embrace their next chapter, the heroes must band together with the help of War Dog Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) and forge a new path for the kingdom of Wakanda. Introducing Tenoch Huerta as Namor, king of Talokan, the film also stars Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena and Alex Livinalli.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever reportedly clocks in at 2 hours 41 minutes making the film the longest Phase 4 movie. The film opens in theatres on November 11, 2022, in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu in India.